Now that I’ve read James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, I can talk about one particular criticism I have about the book… involving criticism. It’s about how the main character, David, has disdain for particular groups of gay men, basically the groups he is not a part of. Is this the character’s internal homophobia? Is it also the opinion of Baldwin himself?
I mentioned in last week’s post that David considers two older gay men who are central to the plot with disgust. At the beginning of Chapter 2 in Part 1, a more reflective David does confess after the fact, “I understand now that the contempt I felt for [Jacques, one of the older gays] involved my self-contempt.” Somehow I’d forgotten this line. It’s easy to do when the disgust David expresses as the narrator seems so relentless.
Another group gets dissed in a few of David’s asides. The more feminine gay men seem to be despised. The reader is clobbered by David’s hate the moment he walks into a gay bar in Paris:
There were, of course, les folles, always dressed in
the most improbable combinations, screaming like
parrots…Occasionally one would swoop in, quite
late in the evening, to convey the news that he—but
they always called each other “she”—had just
spent time with a celebrated movie star, or boxer.
Then all of the others closed in on this newcomer
and they looked like a peacock garden and
sounded like a barnyard. I always found it difficult
to believe that they ever went to bed with anybody,
for a man who wanted a woman would certainly
not want one of them. Perhaps, indeed, that was
why they screamed so loud.
I would like to think attitudes have changed since the book’s publication seventy years ago. Sadly, I think as long as there have been gay bars, the more effeminate have been savagely mocked by those who have some need to distinguish themselves as not one of them. Not having spent much time in gay bars—or queer spaces—in the last decade, I’d like to think the community is less divisive and, indeed, less inclined to criticize more effeminate gays. I’ve said it before in this blog and it should be obvious but it’s worth repeating. The gays who did not have the luxury of “passing” as straight have often been outed earlier because they never had an opportunity to linger in the closet while trying to figure things out about their identity. Without any choice in the matter, the more effeminate are often the first among us to be fully out. They have been the trailblazers who made things easier for the rest of us. (Personally, I believe that most of my peers suspected I was gay when I was a teen on account of my higher voice and the way I talked with my hands but only a few of them called me a gay or a faggot. There was just the slightest doubt about my gayness that offered me some extra time to figure out my identity.)
Immediately after David bashes more effeminate gays, he casts even harsher criticism toward a person in drag:
There was the boy who…came out at night wearing
makeup and earrings and with his heavy blond
hair piled high. Sometimes he actually wore a
skirt and high heels. He usually stood alone
unless Guillaume walked over to tease him.
People said that he was very nice, but I confess
that his utter grotesqueness made me uneasy;
perhaps in the same way that the sight of
monkeys eating their own excrement turns
some people’s stomachs. They might not mind
so much if monkeys did not—so grotesquely—
resemble human beings.
Okay, beyond harsh. Disturbing. 1956, I remind myself. With RuPaul, drag brunches and such, I have to think we’ve changed in this regard. Especially gay men’s attitudes regarding drag.
David—and Baldwin—aren’t any kinder to women. Again, 1956. The woman is subservient to the man. At one point, David thinks he’d like to get married someday and have his wife put the kids to bed. [Sorry, Daddy’s busy smoking his pipe and reading the newspaper.] There is only one significant female character in Giovanni’s Room, Hella, David’s girlfriend. Yes, David tries to have it both ways. His elder, Jacques, tells him that a gay connection can be more than sex—love, even—but it cannot endure. “And how long, at best, can it last? Since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that…in the dark.”
Okay, sad…
Back to Hella. It is noteworthy that she is absent for most of the story. She is an American who is traveling by herself in Spain for an extended period. She comes across as a strong woman and yet she still buys into the times. “[I]f women are supposed to be led by men and there aren’t any men to lead them, what happens then? What happens then?” Immediately thereafter, Hella reaches for her purse, pulls out her compact and applies lipstick. So much for strength and that European independence.
Giovanni’s Room. A classic, they say. A reflection of the times, I suppose. But so much disparagement. To be fair, Baldwin isn’t so kind to one—perhaps both—of his main characters, as well. A readable book, but a gloomy, severe outlook nonetheless.
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